My tulip
On the coffee table in my living room is a beautiful black tulip growing out of a stone. The tulip was carved out of a Kassam rocket, one of thousands that had been shot from Gaza into Israel, mostly in or around Sderot, generally around the time children go to or from school.
Who is more worthy of an activist’s help: Hamas, who controls the Gaza aid racket and aims to kill any and all Israeli school children and their parents with hundreds of rockets shot just this year during this Palestinian “truce” or the civilian population of Sderot living under siege for years? The tulip silently answers me while the Islamists’ corruption of our language has distorted reality.
When Jonathan S. Tobin referred to one of the ships that “resisted” Israeli commandos, he was using the Hamas euphemism for more accurate words like “ambushed” or “assaulted.” (“‘Liberal Zionists’ must choose: Hamas of Israel,” June 3.) A Hamas right to “resist” really means a right to murder. My tulip has quietly turned one Gazan evil intent into an Israeli creation of beauty.
When Hamas says the land of Israel was “stolen,” we realize that Islamists believe that all land once owned by Moslems belongs to Moslems forever, and not only Israel, but lands like Spain as well. Yet a land really belongs to those who care for it; and my tulip says it was Jews who made the desert bloom.
Leah Silver
Highland Park
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